Comic Info
Comic Name: Years of Future Past
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Marguerite Bennett
Artist: Mike Norton
# of Issues: 5
Release Date: 2015
Warzones!: Years of Future Past #3 Variant
Reprints Years of Future Past #1-5 (August 2015-November 2015). The future of mutants rests in Christina Pryde. She is the daughter of Kate Pryde and Peter Rasputin and the last mutant born. As mutants are rounded up and imprisoned, a plot against President Kelly could mean a death knell for mutantkind if Kelly turns his Sentinels on the last surviving mutants. All isn’t what it seems with the planned assassination attempt, and it could be that Kelly is targeting himself to rouse anti-mutant sentiment…time is running out and the X-Men must find the answer before it is too late.
Written by Marguerite Bennett, Warzones!: Years of Future Past is a Marvel Comics event series. A tie-in with the Secret Wars limited series, the collection features art by Mike Norton.
Secret Wars itself was kind of a drag, but I did like some of the spin-off titles because they were allowed to explore old writing styles, old stories, and alternate “What If?” type characters while giving them a more expanded background. Years of Future Past isn’t my favorite tie-in series, but it is a logical tie-in.
X-Men: Days of Future Past which ran in Uncanny X-Men (1) #141-142 (January 1981-February 1981) was a big deal. It set the stage for X-Men comics for decades and still reverberates today through individual characters. This is kind of a mini-return with aspects of Days of Future Past mixed in for a new story and a mystery of who is trying to kill Kelly. While the story twists a few times, the final twist (involving Cameron’s decision) feels a bit over the top and unrealistic.
Warzones!: Years of Future Past #5
While I don’t love the story choices, I commend the ending of the series. Rather than neatly wrapping up the story, the story become a bit more of a metaphor involving the tigers that prowl the city. Often comic books go for the “here’s the end” and they all walk off or mourn the dead. Years of Future Past didn’t really do that and instead leaves the story in a bit of a free-fall for the mutants. The events of Secret Wars was never going to last and treating the ending as more of a mystery or thoughtful at least didn’t leave you waiting for the next adventure.
Overall, Warzones!: Years of Future Past was a bit of a slog to get through. It tried hard to be creative, and I admire that it didn’t always take the easy route, but overall it suffers from the same things that many of these Secret Wars limited series suffered from and that was the vagueness of Secret Wars. You didn’t really get to commit to any of the series, there were too many to follow as the main series came out, and once Secret Wars was over, the door to the “world” was going to essentially be sealed so investing in the characters seems a bit pointless. Years of Future Past suffers from all of this, and it might not be worth the ride for many…even X-Men fans.
